Quit watching me!

As I sit here, I can't help but feel the gaze of unreal green eyes. Why unreal? They're cybernetic implants. They can see in the dark, but they don't glow. I'm never sure when they are watching or who happens to be playing with them. Which, you can probably imagine, is a little unsettling for me as I often write in the dark -- less distractions that way.

When is too much tech bad for a story?

- When the word count gets crazy high.

- When your MC starts to sound too much like a superhero, and she's not.

- When the tech creates plot holes the size of Idaho.

- When your realize it's nothing more than ornamental because that scene you intended to use it for never came into being.

What to do about it? Whip out the editing knife.

Ms. MC narrows her freakish green eyes. The iris is solid green, no pupil. They give me the creeps. They kind of creep out Mr. MC too, which is another issue, because he's supposed to be somewhat attracted to her.

"Just what do you think you're going to do with that knife?"

"Hold still, this will only hurt for a couple minutes until I find/replace all mention of your artificial eyes."

She hops up on my keyboard and stomps on the space bar. "You're going to do what?"

"Get off there!" Empty pages fly by as the curser speeds down the screen. "Look what you're doing to the document!"

"I happen to like my eyes." She lays off the space bar and crosses her arms over her chest "You can't just delete them, there's an entire chapter of backstory that shows how and why I got them."

"I know. That's the whole idea. Have you seen the word count lately?"

Ms. MC snorts. "Why would I care? You knocked my pov to the backseat, remember?"

"Exactly, and that's why you don't need as much page time." I grasp the knife and go for her eyes. Two minutes and a lot of struggling later, we're done.

She shakes her head and blinks, holding her hands in front of her face and peering at them. "Huh, they don't look any different."

"Notice anything else?" I point at the new short scene that took the pace of the entire chapter of backstory.

"I don't have to lose my original eyes in a horribly graphic and painful scene that made our readers say 'euw'?"

I put my knife down. "Nope."

She peers over the edge of the desk at the characters below and waves to Nekar. I suppose it makes sense that they'd be getting along better now that the eye gouging scene is gone. I smile to myself.

Nekar looks up from his adverb crate and gives her a tenative wave back.

Ms. MC stops waving and flips him off.

He spins around, pulls two words from the stack and whips them at her.

Hatefully and Vulgarly make it as far as my chair.

So much for getting along.